Re: Chemicals by any other name


Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Mon, 17 May 1999 13:03:23 -0400 (EDT)


While we're reminiscing about the good old days, I must add that I recall
the "science" class in 5th grade when the teacher gave us a ball of
mercury and we passed it from hot little hand to hot little hand, playing
... so amusing -- "quicksilver." In fact a friend of a friend had to be
chelated -- her father had had a ball of mercury the kids played with
regularly.

Meanwhile, a couple of annotations to Gene's list:

On Mon, 17 May 1999, Eugene Robkin wrote:
> Hydrochloric acid - swimming pool cleaner and dairy equipment cleaner.

For our purposes (usually) muriatic acid, which costs $6 a gallon in the
hardware store or paint department is the same -- for anything you mix
with tap water -- as in clearing baths. The only problem with it was that
a gallon was waaaaaay too much. I'm still trying to cope with the
"overflow."

The copper sulfate is also called "blue vitriol" and sold under that name
in nurseries (the plant kind, not the baby kind).

And let me add that washing soda is sodium carbonate and 70 mule
team borax is like that. However, in some cases the commercial product is
MORE expensive, so you have to watch it. We once had a spill of muriatic
acid here, which was pretty massive -- soaked through the floor, etc. The
"prescription" from the fire department hazards police was a certain kind
of pool cleaner, which we made a trip to brooklyn to get.

Reading the label carefully, I saw it was simply sodium carbonate, but it
cost at least 6 times as much as "regular" sodium carbonate from the
chemical house and 30 times as much as washing soda.

So, like it says on the penny, caveat emptor.

cheers,

Judy



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